St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-06-21
Why Some Of the Northwestern 2 Papers
Carefully Avoid Amy Clear
Explanation.
What will the Republicans Do for Work
mems Vote Without the Tar iH
Bugaboo?
Effect of Hooms on Local Land Values
Some Opinions Of Clarence
M0eller.


in their advocacy of it. The recent let
tiers in the GLOBE, giving local appli-
cation to the theory and bringing it
home to the people, have attracted gen.
eral attention and elected much COM
ment. Speaking of this yesterday, Clar-
ence MOeller, who has given the matter
much thought and who is careful stu
dent of the daily press, said:
81 see your editorial on Houses for
WOrkingmen' is exciting general discus
sion on that subject, and as Charles
Phillips concludes his communication to
the Sunday edition with this interr0ga-
tory, When will the capitalists awake
to the necessity of providing the re-
Quired houses and thus do great good
to the people of the city?' should Ii Ike
to give you an analysis of the when
Never will there be general tendency
of capital in this direction from any
philanthropic motive. Never, while
titable than productive, i. e., while
is more profitable than building
and making the much desired i'm
provementS; in other words, SO long as
it pays better dividend to keep
people off the land and cornering
it and holding for speculation,
capital will never turn to its proper
channel of productive industrial invest
ment. The true solution of this ques-
ton seems to me one demanding the
attention of all who are in any way
identified with the general welfare of
the people, therefore consideration of
how to make building and improvement
more profitable, the first thing that
should naturally suggest itself to the
economist would be the abolition of tax
on building and improvements, and also
on the products of labor and material
that go into them. This infers the
single tax on land value and has
double effect on the tendency of invest
ment. Further than this, all economists
will maintain that the margin between
a good investment and a poor one is
comparatively narrow. The predOmi-
nent tendency of capital to land specu-
lative investment is because there is a
better margin than in industrial invest
ment, but the evil of it is that it handi-
caps the industrial world by enormous
rents to make up interest on speculative
land value, which not only hampers the
distribution of the products of industry,
but destroys the purchasing power of
labor.
GLOW will the single tax affect this?''
81 claim for the single tax these two
-
margins on Industrial investment from
2 to per cent. and decrease the margin
on speculative investment from to 10
per cent, making the total differ
ence in favor of the industrial world
of to Is per cent. But more important
than this wide margin is that it would
call into full play all the engines of pro-
duction and develop all the energies of
idle and internitently employed labor,
and this demand of itself would tend to
force wages up to the highest earning
point which again would be spent in
building more homes, in better furni-
industry. But this is not all yet. This
wider distribution of wealth would
make better citizens eliminate all
necessity for strikes and bOycotts.
While this is great political
question the necessity of making it
partisan is to be deplored. Again, as to
the justice of this tax, which the Even
ing Journal prOnOunceS robbery" 1
would say that Solomon the Wise said,
moreover the profit of the earth is for
ALL" and as an eXpounder of Mosaic
law he is pretty good authority. But
some presume to say that he only re-
ferred to that part of the earth known
as Syria, and would have us believe
that what is a fact on one side of the
globe is not fact Oh the other; and also
that time changes the fitness of things,
but the Journal forgets to state how
long it takes to change wrong into right,
or vice versa. Again, it is so transpar-
ent that society has the first right to tax
for the common welfare of the people
that value Qand valuel, which the in
crease of population creates, before it
has any right to levy on the products of
individual industry, that l believe there
is no answer to it in natural justice to
man and man, and the sooner the
Press, Tribune and Journal conclude
that mud-slinging dirties themselves
first, the better off they will be- Again.
it is said that the farmers will oppose
this, but when they understand that
their interests as labOrerS and producers
are ten times greater than their inter-
ests as land owners, they will demand
it, unless they expect city to grow up.
Oh their farm, and their share of state
and national tax would be less than
under the present system, from the fact
that land value is maSsed in towns and
cities, relatively. Further than this I
trust the GLOBE. whether it may
or may not agree to the economic truth
of the single tax, will have no heSita-
ton in publishing and giving to the
people any argument that may be
brought to bear on the question, as it is
the only daily in the Northwest whose
readers have any idea of the demands
of the new party, for the readers of the
three other papers have no more idea of
the aim of the new movement than they
have OF the CONFORMATION of the other
side of the MOON"
SIS there anything political in their
attitude, do you think?''
''There is everything in it. 1t means
that the Republicans have more to fear
in presidential contest than the Dem
OcratS."
ut is certainly contrary to general
opinion
at may be, but it is right. The point
is that the Republicans have heretofore
held the laboring classes by their pro-
tective tariff bugaboo. They have
scared the wOrkingmen into the belief
that they would Starve to death in land
of plenty, and with this power gone
their only stock in trade will be to
flourish the bloody shirt and run on
the personal magnetism of the candi-
dates. But workingmen have no use
for personal magnetism. l also might
mention a very popular error that some
thinkers may fall into especially and that
is that it would tend to drive out East
ern capital, SO for illustration l would
say suppose the land value of st. Paul
to be a hundred million and through
Eastern capital and professional
boomers it should mount up to two
hundred million: is it not evident that
eight to ten million annually must be
drawn from industry in rents to pay in
terest on this, and if it Gland value)
should be doomed to billion it would
not represent created value,
but fictitious one and
would be a prohibitary restriction
-on any further Development. Again, if
when workingmen and people of mod
crate means began to go over to West
st. Paul to build homes, it would have
continued with prpatar and crroator